How to fix FaceTime waiting for activation error on iPhone 4
Suffering from a FaceTime "waiting for activation" error? So was I. The one thing I wanted to try most on my new Canadian iPhone 4 was FaceTime. I've made no secret about being jealous of Chad and Leanna, so the instant iPhone 4 was in my hand and on Wi-Fi I went to hit the FaceTime button and... found no button. I checked my Settings immediately and saw, under the FaceTime on/off toggle the chillingly cryptic words: waiting for activation. What the h3ll?
To make matters worse, Rene's was working fine. Intolerable!
Now FaceTime functions over Wi-Fi but it uses your phone number to identify and connect with other iPhone 4 users. Since my carrier, Fido was -- of course -- having problems during the iPhone 4 launch, with some people having to wait up to 24hrs for their SIM to work, I immediately thought they might be the culprit. I also did the usual trouble-shooting steps of reseting the network connections, turning my iPhone 4 on and off, removing and replacing my SIM, and even did a full restore. No luck. My phone and SMS were working fine, so Fido was looking like less of a culprit. Unfortunately.
So off to the Apple Store I went. It was the day after launch and they were still packed but the manager heard my plight, found me someone to help, and they immediately escalated me to an iPhone genius-type-person. He told me I needed the Fido 7.2 carrier update. It downloads over the air (OTA) but you can help it along by going to the Settings, General, About page and waiting a few moments.
Next he took me through a few easy steps:
- We went on Wi-Fi
- We did a hard power down (holding down sleep + home until the power off slider appeared).
- We rebooted.
And voila, the buttons popped up and I was able to make my first FaceTime call!
If you're having the same "waiting for activation" error, try the steps above and let me know how they work for you.
Senior Editor at iMore, psychotherapist, 2x Canadian Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion, co-host of iPhone & iPad Live and ZEN and TECH.
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worked for me too.. you need to hold both buttons down until the phone turns itself off. do not use the slider to turn your phone off!
holding the sleep/wake button and home button is only for one purpose, a hard reset. You hold them both down until the screen goes black (ignoring the power off slider that pops down) and then when the white apple logo pops back up you let go of both buttons. Sliding the slider just powers it off normally, there is not such thing as a hard power down.
That doesn't work!!
I always can activate my FaceTime and IMessage in 5 minutes but I believe it's the APN. I am on T-mobile IPhone 4 iOS 5.0.1 factory unlocked. If anyone needs help with the apn I'd be likely to help
Can you please provide the pan settings?
Can you help with providing the apn settings??
It didn't work for me... I had to configure my phone again and it didn't even work...
Didn't work for me either.